Kinda, Sorta, Maybe
by livelyfingered
Summary: Ally finally confesses her feelings for Austin, and it takes a while to sink in—but when it does, all heaven breaks loose. / AustinAlly. Oneshot; fluff.


_**Kinda, Sorta, Maybe**_

Ally finally confesses her feelings for Austin, and it takes a while to sink in—but when it does, all heaven breaks loose. / AustinAlly. Oneshot; fluff.

**A/N: No real spoilers—just speculation based on the promo and clip that have already been officially released. Might as well write about Ally's inevitable internal conflict, right? Anyway, this starts out with some expected teenage angst and develops relatively quickly into a huge fluffball. My personal (and so far fail-proof) technique is to overload on fluff before and during a romantic arc, so that whatever happens, I'll always have incredible feels from fanfiction to keep me going. (Apologies for not updating my multichap first—I'll get to that as soon as I can!)**

**Enjoy! If you've got the time (even if you're anonymous or not signed in!) and would like to give me a little honest feedback, I'd really appreciate that. ;-)**

**:::**

She _kinda _did it just to gauge Kira's reaction.

But at least eighty percent of her motivation (because of course you can quantify these things) came from the fact that she _kinda_ wanted to do it anyway—namely, hugging her favorite boy for just a little more than the platonically acceptable number of seconds. She _kinda_ crossed the line of innocence, if you catch her drift. But it didn't help that he stood nervously against the counter without reciprocating, and it didn't help that he eventually responded by going after another girl and leaving the one clinging to his shoulders literally hanging.

It also didn't help that throughout the whole fiasco, Trish and Dez had basically egged them along. _Special relationship_, she gushed._ Happy couple_, he cooed. Yeah, right.

The entire mall had seen her essentially use Austin as a human automobile. After such public humiliation, there was no way she could make it through the rest of the day—and that song reference was completely on purpose.

:::

Okay, so she was _sorta _excited.

Who wouldn't be? Being asked on a practice date by her best guy friend was the closest she could get to actually being asked out by him… right? Of course, he could never actually ask her out, because—because that was off-limits, _sorta_.

But she was also reluctant about it. After all, she was only helping him slowly drift away from her. So her smile was _sorta _forced. It was actually pretty understandable, yeah?

There was a moment, though. It was almost sickeningly cliché and way too reminiscient of cheesy Disney high school romance movies, but she honestly didn't know how else to explain it. She _sorta_ got lost in his eyes—those warm, luminescent spheres of wonder.

:::

"Austin," she said. Her voice wavered slightly, and she swallowed to keep her heart from pounding up and out of her throat.

"Yep," he answered briskly. She looked away to avoid being sucked into those crystalline orbs that were his eyes.

"Uh—I'm going to say something now." She scoffed inwardly at herself, but it wasn't the right time to reflect on her rapidly dwindling confidence level, so she pushed away all doubts.

"Okay."

She straightened her shoulders. "Don't even try to stop me, because I won't. This is really stressful for me—"

"Just get it out of your system," he urged gently.

She headed directly for the jackpot. "I like you." It probably came out too quickly anyway, but she immediately mistook his confusion for something else, something _bad_. She didn't even know how he felt, but she automatically assumed that he was going to reject her.

So she pushed on. "I uh, I _kinda_ like you."

"Wait, what?" He was just extremely confused, but she didn't realize that.

"I _sorta _like you, okay?"

A terrible, terrible silence—she was afraid of silence.

"I think _maybe_… I like you," she whispered again.

"Oh," he muttered. "Oh. I—uh, I couldn't hear you originally."

"Evidently," she forced out.

More silence—it became increasingly unbearable, to the point where she could hear the ringing in her ears where the noise used to be. He was still unmoving, unsmiling, so she turned on her heel and left him there.

:::

He spent two days evading the unspoken question. But his emotional capacity wasn't infinite, and these emotions were hitting him like ten thousand bricks all at once, so he just said it.

"I like you, too."

A mixture of elation and shock and frustration swept over her all at once, but it almost immediately transformed into enormous, heart-stopping happiness. She felt like dancing in Carnegie Hall in front of thousands of people, because she could overcome anything, even her two greatest fears—but somehow, she managed to keep her composure.

"Huh?" She was teasing, but he obviously didn't realize it and rocketed into the first stages of an emotional breakdown.

"I like you, Ally," he squeaked.

"Hum, only _kinda_?" She was referring to her own confession, and moreover was putting words in his mouth, but he missed both.

"No—no! I really like you!"

"Oh, only _sorta_, I see," she giggled. He was pulling at his hair now, completely unaware of what she was doing, because he couldn't think logically or reasonably.

"Ugh—no—I like you a lot! Like, _a lot_!"

"That's a _maybe_, yeah?" She was practically doubled over laughing, but still he remained oblivious of her actions.

"No," and he began to sound exasperated, "I really, really like you." He grinned hopefully at her, and only then did he notice her sly smile. It dawned upon him that she had drawn out their entire conversation, and he assumed a hurt expression.

"Hey—that's not fair, Ally!"

She laughed the purest of laughs, and he almost fell in love—or in _like_, rather—all over again.

:::

"Another shot of the happy couple," Dez chirped, and this time they posed. This time, they were actually _happy_ and actually a _couple_. "And another," he said again, and the camera flashed and swiveled from all angles.

"Let them have their peace, you bozo," berated Trish, but she said it happily, teasingly. Eventually, filmmaker and manager took their leaves, leaving the couple in comfortable silence.

"So, Ally," he started, "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know—movies?" She propped herself up on her arms to stare at him expectantly.

"Ah, not really. Kinda, I guess. How about that pasta place? I heard they have a pickles special…" He'd do anything to get Ally her pickles.

"Well, sorta. Possibly."

"What! Ally, you're turning down pickles?"

But she interrupted him before he could finish. "How about late-night pancakes and pickles right here in Sonic Boom? Like, _late_-_night_, you know, or it wouldn't be as cool." She looked up at him excitedly, waiting for his response.

"Maybe, Ally. Yeah, maybe that would work. Hey, you know what?" He grinned widely down at her before continuing. "I'd go for that—kinda, sorta, maybe… _definitely_."

:::

**I hope that was fun! I probably overemphasized the use of **_**kinda**_** and **_**sorta**_** and **_**maybe**_**, but they were the unifying factors and I couldn't just let it go.**

**Anyway, please consider leaving a little note for me—I can't wait to hear from you!**


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